FIC: How Was I Supposed To Know, Chapter 12 / 14 (Crowley/OFC)
FIC: How Was I Supposed To Know, Chapter 12 / 14 (Crowley/OFC)
AUTHOR: anneelliot201
GENRE: Romance/Drama
PAIRING: Crowley/OFC
RATING: NC-17
SPOILERS: Season 8, references to Season 9
SUMMARY: Hazel is an ordinary woman--a blackjack dealer at a casino in the middle of the New Mexican desert--but her world gets turned upside down when a man in a black suit decides to take an interest in her. PLEASE NOTE THIS FIC WAS WRITTEN WHILE WATCHING SEASON 9 AND THEREFORE DOES NOT COMPLY WITH CURRENT CANON. I TOOK THINGS IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION FOR STORYTELLING PURPOSES.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This will be 14 chapters. And it's almost done!
CHAPTER 12
She was sitting sideways in the chair, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her legs crossed. Her head rested against the wall as she watched the door just a few feet away. Crowley could see how anxious she was, how frightened. The bunker was silent and still, not even the creaks and groans of an old house. And not a word from Hazel either. He’d apologized to her, though the apology was admittedly hollow if he refused to do anything to save her. She hadn’t said a word to him since then. She’d shut down and he felt left out in the cold. It was a familiar place to be for him, but it no longer felt comfortable--not when he knew how good it felt to be let into her world.
“I don’t know how to be the hero, darling,” he offered, desperate to break the silence and quell these feelings of guilt and grief. And anxiety, too. It came as a shock that he feared for her safety almost as much as he feared for his own.
She didn’t even look at him when she replied, “And obviously I’m not important enough to even attempt it.”
Crowley didn’t know what to say. She was right. That was a decision he had made. His life--existence--was worth more than hers so he wouldn’t even try to save her. All his energy was focused on saving himself, making sure he came out of this situation intact if not in a position of power. The chain on his handcuffs rattled across the table as he sat back in the chair.
“I’m so stupid,” she whispered. “They told me you just use people and I thought I knew better. I just... just don’t understand why you didn’t try to escape when I let you out of this room. Was it because I didn’t have a key to the cuffs?”
“Yes and no,” he answered honestly. If he didn’t have the balls to protect her then he might as well be honest with her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, lifting her head up off the wall and turning it to look at him.
“I can’t leave here with the cuffs on. They make me powerless; I’d be slaughtered. But I didn’t want to leave either.”
“Oh, you enjoyed my company so much, did you?” she asked, her tone sharp with bitterness.
“I did,” he replied, biting his tongue to keep from saying more, confessing that she WAS important to him.
Hazel snorted. “Fuck you, you... you... you heartbreaker.” She looked away and dropped her gaze to the floor.
Crowley’s chest ached and his throat felt tight. All those times he spent his miserable human existence reaching out for love and getting smacked back. All those heartbreaking little moments that sent him down the path of being a bitter, unhappy man who sold his soul for something so inconsequential. He’d flirted with her affections in a desperate attempt at controlling his emotions or touching what he’d never had and now he’d done to her what had been done to him. It made him feel sick.
“Darling,” he said softly. “I didn’t...” Crowley had no idea what to tell her. He didn’t mean to? He didn’t want it to be this way? He never felt anything? He’d never felt more?
“Yeah,” she agreed. “You didn’t.”
“I don’t know how to be this way. I don’t know how to be better. I don’t know how to put anything before my survival.”
She was silent for a long moment, her eyes trained on the floor right in front of the door. Seconds ticked by, maybe a full minute, before she said, “I forget that you’re in danger, too. And that’s... sad. But you’re a... demon.” She said the word, but he could tell it had been a struggle for her. “And I’m a human, which is a little more delicate, right? And this is your problem, not mine. So, it’s not fair for me to have to carry your burden.”
“You’re right,” he replied.
“Do you really think that?” she asked.
“I do.”
“Then why won’t you take it back? Let me go back to my life?”
“Because I’m a selfish bastard who doesn’t want to put himself in danger. And who doesn’t want to let you go.” It was one of the most baldly truthful things he’d ever confessed to. Weakness, fear, longing, need. All in that one statement.
“Why?”
He knew she was asking about his second admission. Why indeed? Why wasn’t he willing to let her go? Why was he risking her life in hopes that this would end well? And those hopes were mostly futile. Abbadon wouldn’t stop until she had control. If it wasn’t tonight, then it would be some other day. And Hazel would be caught in the middle and killed when that time came. “I don’t know why. I don’t know how to do this.”
“What? Care about something, someone?” Her voice was harder than he wanted it to be. The damage had been done and she was cutting him off. And women like her didn’t vacillate, didn’t give a second chance to a fool who had already been give a chance when it wasn’t even deserved.
“I’ve never had the opportunity,” Crowley admitted, feeling bitter that she’s backed him into a corner.
“That’s bullshit,” she snapped. Hazel wouldn’t even look at him. Her eyes were still on the floor.
“My mother hated me from the moment of my birth. I spent my childhood asking for her love, begging for it or at least some sort of approval from her. I got nothing. When I was older I looked for that acceptance from women--though probably women beyond my social status--and was rebuked. Which led me to whores since I could pay for them to fake interest in my miserable existence. And when I did marry, it was a hateful union of two people who could do no better and could barely tolerate each other.” He felt pathetic admitting any of this to her, but he could think of nothing else to say. And he needed to stay something to dissolve that hurt expression on her face. “And when my soul was collected, I spent what felt like centuries in Hell, relieving all those terrible failures and experiencing new ones.”
She shifted her body in the chair so she was facing him, her legs still crossed. “Why did you surround yourself with people who didn’t want you or appreciate you in life?”
“Because I was a worthless person,” he replied without a second thought.
Hazel leaned forward and rested her arms on her knee. “You actually believed your mother that you were worthless?” she asked, her voice soft.
“Of course I did. I still do. I’m only good at surviving.”
“But you’ve risen to the top. You didn’t just survive.”
“It’s empty, love. Empty. The top is lonely and its a constant battle.”
Her eyes softened. And while he hadn’t said that to get her sympathy, it felt nice to have it. “Why don’t you stop, then? Just give it up?”
“I can’t do that. I’d be killed. No one would trust that my ambition had just disappeared.”
She sighed. “Why are you telling me this? You’re the Wizard and you aren’t supposed to show me what is behind the curtain.”
Crowley felt overwhelming sadness well up within him. “Because in a very short amount of time, one or both of us is going to be dead and it won’t matter any longer.”
“I’m scared,” Hazel admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.
The sadness was replaced with a sweet tenderness, something he’d only felt briefly when she’d been in his lap, her gentle fingers in his hair. “I know it isn’t any consolation, but this is the last thing I wanted to happen,” he said. “If I could go back and do it all over again, I wouldn’t have touched you. I wouldn’t have even walked into the casino and spoken to you.”
“Oh,” she said. Her eyes looked so sad and so fearful. He wished he could take all that away from her. Instead, he was the one responsible for it all.
“You deserve better than this, darling. Better than me.”
“Don’t let your mother convince you of something that isn’t true. You could be a better person, a worthwhile person, if you make those choices.”
“Doubtful, darling. Very doubtful.”
She opened her mouth to argue with him, but nothing came out when they both heard a loud crash. It sounded like the door to the bunker had been blown off its hinges.
Hazel’s eyes widened and she jumped up from the chair. She blinked and Crowley could see tears running down her cheeks.
“Be quiet, love,” he whispered, standing up himself.
They both stood, frozen, in the small stone dungeon, listening for the sound of footsteps in the hallway, but hearing nothing.
“I don’t want either of us to die,” Hazel whispered, retreating to the back of the room, farther from the door. Her preoccupation with whatever was going out outside the dungeon’s doors made her careless and she walked right through the Devil’s Trap. Crowley couldn’t suppress his instinct to reach out and grab her hand. She gave no resistance to being pulled closer until her body was pressed against his.
“I also don’t want either of us to die, love.” He pressed one hand into her back and covered her lips with the fingertips of his other hand. The chain on the cuffs was pulled taunt against her bare arm. The floor underneath them rumbled and the sound of wood splintering could be heard. Not yet in the storage room, but certainly within the bunker.
“Please don’t let me die,” she said softly, her lips moving against the pads of his fingers. “Please.” And then she shifted against him and pulled a tiny key from inside her shirt. It has probably been tucked away in her bra.
“What is that?” Crowley asked. His voiced sounded so far away, like he was a down a tunnel and watching himself from a distance.
“The key to the cuffs. Please don’t let her kill me,” Hazel said, her trembling hand lifting to the keyhole.
“Darling, don’t,” he whispered. If she released him then it would be a choice he’d have to make. Leave her or save her. And he would leave her. And she would die hating him. He’d rather be chained.
“She can’t kill us both, right? I’d rather one of us live than neither.”
Crowley felt tremendous guilt, so much so that he felt he might be sick. He might just bend over and empty the contents of his guts on the floor at her feet. The fact that she even considered his existence worth saving broke his blackened, damaged heart.
She twisted the key and the cuff opened. He dropped his hand and watched numbly as she unlocked the other cuff. It clattered to the floor a moment before the key. He watched as she walked over and lifted the removable piece out of the Devil’s Trap. Free. He was free. And he couldn’t remember a time when he detested the idea of it like he did now. Because now she would know his true nature. That he was a cut-throat realist who would do anything to get what he wanted or save his own skin.
“Please,” she said, turning around to face him.
Crowley moved forward and snatched her hand. “Hurry,” he whispered. Maybe if he could get out of the wards in this bunker then they might stand a chance at escape. The wards prevented him from poofing himself and her out, but if he could get outside then maybe. And if he could take her with him, then he would. Because she is the key. Because he was responsible for her, because she had shown him the only pure kindness he’d known. And because you care for her, he reminded himself.
*********************************
Hazel was terrified. She imagined the demon who had been hunting her was some gigantic, horned beast. She thought it even though she knew by now that demons didn’t really look that way in her world. Maybe in Hell, but not here. They were smoke or they looked like normal people. Which was somehow scarier. All that evil, all that danger hiding in an innocuous wrapper.
Crowley’s hand was gripping hers tightly as he lead her out into the storage room. Part of her wanted to stay where they had been, but if this demon was as determined as the Winchester brothers made her seem, then hiding in a room with no second exit was just asking for death. He cautiously edged them forward and then pulled her down the hall quickly.
When they entered the main room, Hazel gasped and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. The table was split down the middle and the books and papers that had been on it minutes before were strewn across the room like confetti.
“Get that knife and go,” Crowley whispered, pushing her ahead of him. There was a knife that had tumbled from the shelf where the Winchesters kept their weapons by the stairs. It was long and dagger-like. And it felt heavy in her hand as she picked it up and hurried up the stairs. There was a crash from further in the bunker, much too close to where they currently were.
“Go,” he told hissed, pushing her up the stairs.
Hazel’s heart was pounding out of her chest, fear of what she’d find just outside the door almost paralyzing her. But it couldn’t be worse than the thing tearing apart the bunker. She saw that the door had been blown off its hinges before she even got to the landing.
Crowley’s hand was on her back, pushing her toward the opening. She stepped outside into a dreary Kansas afternoon. The sky was drizzling rain and the thick, dark clouds threatened more. Despite it all, the smell was amazing. Fresh air, foliage, water. Her fear receded for just a moment while she took in the sprinkle of water across her bare arms.
The relief was short-lived when she felt an arm lock around her neck and turn her around. She grabbed it with her hands, but it was like steel. Crowley stood in front of her, his face devoid of expression.
“We’ve been looking for you and this bitch,” a male voice behind her said.
Crowley folded his hands in front of himself and tilted his head to the side. His demeanor was so calm while Hazel’s heart felt like a trapped bird about to die. “Don’t tell me you’ve bought into Abbadon’s idea of a chaotic hell? Do you think you’ll actually find the rewards I can give you? It will be every demon for himself.”
“Better than a bureaucracy,” the demon behind her snarled. “Better than bowing to a Winchester-loving turncoat like you.”
Crowley scoffed. “They had her and I retrieved her. Now let her go or there will be no end to the torture I put you through.”
Hazel almost couldn’t breathe with the demon’s arm so tight against her throat and her tip-toes barely on the ground. She looked at Crowley with wide eyes, begging him to help her. He locked gazes with her and purposefully moved his eyes down her arm to her hand and then back up again. It took him repeating the glance once more for her to realize that he was looking at the knife.
“You’re soft. We need a warrior to lead us. We’ll take over and enslave all these pathetic humans.”
Crowley’s dark eyes caught hers again and he nodded. Did he want her to stab the demon behind her? She could barely breathe and she’d never fought anyone in her entire life. How was she supposed to stab someone?
Before she could argue with herself any longer, she saw a woman step out of the bunker. She had on a leather jacket and a T-shirt. Her makeup was flawless and her hair was almost as red as her lips. Crowley must have seen Hazel’s eyes widen in fright because he turned around. Without a second thought, Hazel used every bit of strength in her body to lift her arm up and bury the knife into the demon’s side. For a moment his grip on her tightened and then it went slack as he screamed a terrifying wail.
Just as he fell to the ground, a second man stepped out of the bunker, flanking Crowley from behind while the woman, who Hazel could only guess was Abbadon, approached him directly. “You’re a slippery little weasel, Crowley,” she told him. Her voice would have been melodic and pleasant if she didn’t sound so vicious.
“I have my talents.”
“Like getting captured by the Winchesters and locked up with your little toy here?”
Abbadon’s back was to her now, but Hazel no longer had the knife. It was sticking out of the side of the man--demon--she’d just killed. Hazel felt stupid and useless. She could have helped him and herself if she’d had the presence of mind to hold onto the knife or grab it before these two had exited the bunker.
“Do you actually think you can control them all?” Crowley asked. “Demons aren’t loyal. They need to be managed like children. And you can’d do it; you’re a tantrum-pulling child yourself, darling.”
The other demon was circling around behind her. Hazel could feel his presence. She glanced back to see him pulling the knife out of his fallen comrade. When she turned around, Crowley was gone and Abbadon was spinning around, trying to find her.
Hazel’s stomach dropped. He had left. He’d left her there to be slaughtered by this evil woman--demon, she corrected herself again. Panic was welling up in her as she glanced around and saw nothing but a rainy Kansas day and two demons intent on tearing her apart. And just as strong as the fear was the betrayal. She’d actually believed he would help keep her safe, but when the going got tough, he’d skipped out to save himself. And left her alone.
“What do you say we dissect this little toy and find where the key is?” Abbadon asked her soldier. He was obviously a military demon in a military human body, camo and all.
“I don’t have it,” Hazel offered up the lame excuse, but it fell flat.
“I can smell it on you,” Abbadon replied.
“You... you can have it. Just don’t kill me.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, we’re going to have a little torture before the killing. Anything to stick it to that little weasel Crowley. He and his pack of rats have been causing me too much trouble.” She walked toward Hazel. “He doesn’t deserve to rule as Lucifer did.”
Hazel took a step back and then a step to the side, putting them both in front of her. There was no escape. If she ran, they would catch her. If she stayed, they would kill her. The bunker offered no safety because it no longer had a door. There was no car she could use to get away from them, and even if there was, she didn’t have any keys.
“Please. Just take the key. Just take it. I don’t want it.” She took another step back and almost tripped on a rock.
“Let’s start by cutting her fingers and toes off so I can hear her scream,” Abbadon told her lackey.
Hazel took another step back and felt her back hit something. She cringed, realizing it was another of Abbadon’s demons. And then she heard his voice said, “Hello, love.” And then she heard him curse.
Abbadon laughed manically. “You think I’d let you pull that little disappearing act with this little prize here?” she told Crowley. “I’ve anchored her to this place. You can’t run off with her unless you actually want to do some running.”
Hazel swallowed the lump in her throat. She was still terrified, but with him standing behind her she felt less frantic, less hopeless. Even if he couldn’t evaporate her out of this place.
“I’ll make you watch as we filet her and dig out that key,” Abbadon told Crowley.
“I’m afraid not, darling,” he said, turning Hazel around and grabbing the back of her neck. She didn’t have a chance to prepare herself for a hard, forceful kiss. His tongue swept through her mouth and his lips pressed tightly against hers. She felt that tingle and warmth at the base of her skull, just like the night he’d walked to her to car.
When he pulled back, he pushed Hazel hard toward the bunker. “Go!” he yelled at her.
“But...” she protested, watching him turn back to Abbadon and display a jagged black mark on the palm of his hand.
“Go!” he screamed again. “Run.”
Hazel stumbled back a step, but couldn’t make herself leave him.
“I left you, you stupid girl! Leave me. Go!”
“Kill him and give me the key,” Abbadon said.
Hazel looked behind her at the mound of earth that covered the top of the bunker and then back to Crowley. She was useless to him, a liability. She glanced behind her again, but her heart couldn’t leave him alone with this evil woman. When she glanced back to him, the demon in the camo had shoved the knife deep into Crowley’s gut. She could hear his scream, just like the scream of the demon she had killed herself with that same knife.
Hazel let out an anguished cry, a pathetic, helpless sob before turning away and scrambling up the hill on her feet, knees, hands, however she could get away. She was half expecting one or both of the demons to catch up with her. Every step she took she was expecting to feel the steely grip of hands around her neck, pulling her back.
She felt like she’d been running for hours and miles when she reached a one-lane road. Just on the horizon she saw two figures. No doubt Abbadon and her lackey, coming after her now that Crowley was dead. Hazel felt a sob well up from her throat as she turned and started running in the opposite direction. She wasn’t sure how far she would make it with torn-up bare feet.
“Hazel!” a voice yelled from behind her. “Hazel, stop!”
She turned around to see the figures had gained on her. “It’s Dean and Sam!” the other person yelled.
She felt relief wash over her as she collapsed on the pavement and started crying.
AUTHOR: anneelliot201
GENRE: Romance/Drama
PAIRING: Crowley/OFC
RATING: NC-17
SPOILERS: Season 8, references to Season 9
SUMMARY: Hazel is an ordinary woman--a blackjack dealer at a casino in the middle of the New Mexican desert--but her world gets turned upside down when a man in a black suit decides to take an interest in her. PLEASE NOTE THIS FIC WAS WRITTEN WHILE WATCHING SEASON 9 AND THEREFORE DOES NOT COMPLY WITH CURRENT CANON. I TOOK THINGS IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION FOR STORYTELLING PURPOSES.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This will be 14 chapters. And it's almost done!
CHAPTER 12
She was sitting sideways in the chair, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her legs crossed. Her head rested against the wall as she watched the door just a few feet away. Crowley could see how anxious she was, how frightened. The bunker was silent and still, not even the creaks and groans of an old house. And not a word from Hazel either. He’d apologized to her, though the apology was admittedly hollow if he refused to do anything to save her. She hadn’t said a word to him since then. She’d shut down and he felt left out in the cold. It was a familiar place to be for him, but it no longer felt comfortable--not when he knew how good it felt to be let into her world.
“I don’t know how to be the hero, darling,” he offered, desperate to break the silence and quell these feelings of guilt and grief. And anxiety, too. It came as a shock that he feared for her safety almost as much as he feared for his own.
She didn’t even look at him when she replied, “And obviously I’m not important enough to even attempt it.”
Crowley didn’t know what to say. She was right. That was a decision he had made. His life--existence--was worth more than hers so he wouldn’t even try to save her. All his energy was focused on saving himself, making sure he came out of this situation intact if not in a position of power. The chain on his handcuffs rattled across the table as he sat back in the chair.
“I’m so stupid,” she whispered. “They told me you just use people and I thought I knew better. I just... just don’t understand why you didn’t try to escape when I let you out of this room. Was it because I didn’t have a key to the cuffs?”
“Yes and no,” he answered honestly. If he didn’t have the balls to protect her then he might as well be honest with her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, lifting her head up off the wall and turning it to look at him.
“I can’t leave here with the cuffs on. They make me powerless; I’d be slaughtered. But I didn’t want to leave either.”
“Oh, you enjoyed my company so much, did you?” she asked, her tone sharp with bitterness.
“I did,” he replied, biting his tongue to keep from saying more, confessing that she WAS important to him.
Hazel snorted. “Fuck you, you... you... you heartbreaker.” She looked away and dropped her gaze to the floor.
Crowley’s chest ached and his throat felt tight. All those times he spent his miserable human existence reaching out for love and getting smacked back. All those heartbreaking little moments that sent him down the path of being a bitter, unhappy man who sold his soul for something so inconsequential. He’d flirted with her affections in a desperate attempt at controlling his emotions or touching what he’d never had and now he’d done to her what had been done to him. It made him feel sick.
“Darling,” he said softly. “I didn’t...” Crowley had no idea what to tell her. He didn’t mean to? He didn’t want it to be this way? He never felt anything? He’d never felt more?
“Yeah,” she agreed. “You didn’t.”
“I don’t know how to be this way. I don’t know how to be better. I don’t know how to put anything before my survival.”
She was silent for a long moment, her eyes trained on the floor right in front of the door. Seconds ticked by, maybe a full minute, before she said, “I forget that you’re in danger, too. And that’s... sad. But you’re a... demon.” She said the word, but he could tell it had been a struggle for her. “And I’m a human, which is a little more delicate, right? And this is your problem, not mine. So, it’s not fair for me to have to carry your burden.”
“You’re right,” he replied.
“Do you really think that?” she asked.
“I do.”
“Then why won’t you take it back? Let me go back to my life?”
“Because I’m a selfish bastard who doesn’t want to put himself in danger. And who doesn’t want to let you go.” It was one of the most baldly truthful things he’d ever confessed to. Weakness, fear, longing, need. All in that one statement.
“Why?”
He knew she was asking about his second admission. Why indeed? Why wasn’t he willing to let her go? Why was he risking her life in hopes that this would end well? And those hopes were mostly futile. Abbadon wouldn’t stop until she had control. If it wasn’t tonight, then it would be some other day. And Hazel would be caught in the middle and killed when that time came. “I don’t know why. I don’t know how to do this.”
“What? Care about something, someone?” Her voice was harder than he wanted it to be. The damage had been done and she was cutting him off. And women like her didn’t vacillate, didn’t give a second chance to a fool who had already been give a chance when it wasn’t even deserved.
“I’ve never had the opportunity,” Crowley admitted, feeling bitter that she’s backed him into a corner.
“That’s bullshit,” she snapped. Hazel wouldn’t even look at him. Her eyes were still on the floor.
“My mother hated me from the moment of my birth. I spent my childhood asking for her love, begging for it or at least some sort of approval from her. I got nothing. When I was older I looked for that acceptance from women--though probably women beyond my social status--and was rebuked. Which led me to whores since I could pay for them to fake interest in my miserable existence. And when I did marry, it was a hateful union of two people who could do no better and could barely tolerate each other.” He felt pathetic admitting any of this to her, but he could think of nothing else to say. And he needed to stay something to dissolve that hurt expression on her face. “And when my soul was collected, I spent what felt like centuries in Hell, relieving all those terrible failures and experiencing new ones.”
She shifted her body in the chair so she was facing him, her legs still crossed. “Why did you surround yourself with people who didn’t want you or appreciate you in life?”
“Because I was a worthless person,” he replied without a second thought.
Hazel leaned forward and rested her arms on her knee. “You actually believed your mother that you were worthless?” she asked, her voice soft.
“Of course I did. I still do. I’m only good at surviving.”
“But you’ve risen to the top. You didn’t just survive.”
“It’s empty, love. Empty. The top is lonely and its a constant battle.”
Her eyes softened. And while he hadn’t said that to get her sympathy, it felt nice to have it. “Why don’t you stop, then? Just give it up?”
“I can’t do that. I’d be killed. No one would trust that my ambition had just disappeared.”
She sighed. “Why are you telling me this? You’re the Wizard and you aren’t supposed to show me what is behind the curtain.”
Crowley felt overwhelming sadness well up within him. “Because in a very short amount of time, one or both of us is going to be dead and it won’t matter any longer.”
“I’m scared,” Hazel admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.
The sadness was replaced with a sweet tenderness, something he’d only felt briefly when she’d been in his lap, her gentle fingers in his hair. “I know it isn’t any consolation, but this is the last thing I wanted to happen,” he said. “If I could go back and do it all over again, I wouldn’t have touched you. I wouldn’t have even walked into the casino and spoken to you.”
“Oh,” she said. Her eyes looked so sad and so fearful. He wished he could take all that away from her. Instead, he was the one responsible for it all.
“You deserve better than this, darling. Better than me.”
“Don’t let your mother convince you of something that isn’t true. You could be a better person, a worthwhile person, if you make those choices.”
“Doubtful, darling. Very doubtful.”
She opened her mouth to argue with him, but nothing came out when they both heard a loud crash. It sounded like the door to the bunker had been blown off its hinges.
Hazel’s eyes widened and she jumped up from the chair. She blinked and Crowley could see tears running down her cheeks.
“Be quiet, love,” he whispered, standing up himself.
They both stood, frozen, in the small stone dungeon, listening for the sound of footsteps in the hallway, but hearing nothing.
“I don’t want either of us to die,” Hazel whispered, retreating to the back of the room, farther from the door. Her preoccupation with whatever was going out outside the dungeon’s doors made her careless and she walked right through the Devil’s Trap. Crowley couldn’t suppress his instinct to reach out and grab her hand. She gave no resistance to being pulled closer until her body was pressed against his.
“I also don’t want either of us to die, love.” He pressed one hand into her back and covered her lips with the fingertips of his other hand. The chain on the cuffs was pulled taunt against her bare arm. The floor underneath them rumbled and the sound of wood splintering could be heard. Not yet in the storage room, but certainly within the bunker.
“Please don’t let me die,” she said softly, her lips moving against the pads of his fingers. “Please.” And then she shifted against him and pulled a tiny key from inside her shirt. It has probably been tucked away in her bra.
“What is that?” Crowley asked. His voiced sounded so far away, like he was a down a tunnel and watching himself from a distance.
“The key to the cuffs. Please don’t let her kill me,” Hazel said, her trembling hand lifting to the keyhole.
“Darling, don’t,” he whispered. If she released him then it would be a choice he’d have to make. Leave her or save her. And he would leave her. And she would die hating him. He’d rather be chained.
“She can’t kill us both, right? I’d rather one of us live than neither.”
Crowley felt tremendous guilt, so much so that he felt he might be sick. He might just bend over and empty the contents of his guts on the floor at her feet. The fact that she even considered his existence worth saving broke his blackened, damaged heart.
She twisted the key and the cuff opened. He dropped his hand and watched numbly as she unlocked the other cuff. It clattered to the floor a moment before the key. He watched as she walked over and lifted the removable piece out of the Devil’s Trap. Free. He was free. And he couldn’t remember a time when he detested the idea of it like he did now. Because now she would know his true nature. That he was a cut-throat realist who would do anything to get what he wanted or save his own skin.
“Please,” she said, turning around to face him.
Crowley moved forward and snatched her hand. “Hurry,” he whispered. Maybe if he could get out of the wards in this bunker then they might stand a chance at escape. The wards prevented him from poofing himself and her out, but if he could get outside then maybe. And if he could take her with him, then he would. Because she is the key. Because he was responsible for her, because she had shown him the only pure kindness he’d known. And because you care for her, he reminded himself.
*********************************
Hazel was terrified. She imagined the demon who had been hunting her was some gigantic, horned beast. She thought it even though she knew by now that demons didn’t really look that way in her world. Maybe in Hell, but not here. They were smoke or they looked like normal people. Which was somehow scarier. All that evil, all that danger hiding in an innocuous wrapper.
Crowley’s hand was gripping hers tightly as he lead her out into the storage room. Part of her wanted to stay where they had been, but if this demon was as determined as the Winchester brothers made her seem, then hiding in a room with no second exit was just asking for death. He cautiously edged them forward and then pulled her down the hall quickly.
When they entered the main room, Hazel gasped and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. The table was split down the middle and the books and papers that had been on it minutes before were strewn across the room like confetti.
“Get that knife and go,” Crowley whispered, pushing her ahead of him. There was a knife that had tumbled from the shelf where the Winchesters kept their weapons by the stairs. It was long and dagger-like. And it felt heavy in her hand as she picked it up and hurried up the stairs. There was a crash from further in the bunker, much too close to where they currently were.
“Go,” he told hissed, pushing her up the stairs.
Hazel’s heart was pounding out of her chest, fear of what she’d find just outside the door almost paralyzing her. But it couldn’t be worse than the thing tearing apart the bunker. She saw that the door had been blown off its hinges before she even got to the landing.
Crowley’s hand was on her back, pushing her toward the opening. She stepped outside into a dreary Kansas afternoon. The sky was drizzling rain and the thick, dark clouds threatened more. Despite it all, the smell was amazing. Fresh air, foliage, water. Her fear receded for just a moment while she took in the sprinkle of water across her bare arms.
The relief was short-lived when she felt an arm lock around her neck and turn her around. She grabbed it with her hands, but it was like steel. Crowley stood in front of her, his face devoid of expression.
“We’ve been looking for you and this bitch,” a male voice behind her said.
Crowley folded his hands in front of himself and tilted his head to the side. His demeanor was so calm while Hazel’s heart felt like a trapped bird about to die. “Don’t tell me you’ve bought into Abbadon’s idea of a chaotic hell? Do you think you’ll actually find the rewards I can give you? It will be every demon for himself.”
“Better than a bureaucracy,” the demon behind her snarled. “Better than bowing to a Winchester-loving turncoat like you.”
Crowley scoffed. “They had her and I retrieved her. Now let her go or there will be no end to the torture I put you through.”
Hazel almost couldn’t breathe with the demon’s arm so tight against her throat and her tip-toes barely on the ground. She looked at Crowley with wide eyes, begging him to help her. He locked gazes with her and purposefully moved his eyes down her arm to her hand and then back up again. It took him repeating the glance once more for her to realize that he was looking at the knife.
“You’re soft. We need a warrior to lead us. We’ll take over and enslave all these pathetic humans.”
Crowley’s dark eyes caught hers again and he nodded. Did he want her to stab the demon behind her? She could barely breathe and she’d never fought anyone in her entire life. How was she supposed to stab someone?
Before she could argue with herself any longer, she saw a woman step out of the bunker. She had on a leather jacket and a T-shirt. Her makeup was flawless and her hair was almost as red as her lips. Crowley must have seen Hazel’s eyes widen in fright because he turned around. Without a second thought, Hazel used every bit of strength in her body to lift her arm up and bury the knife into the demon’s side. For a moment his grip on her tightened and then it went slack as he screamed a terrifying wail.
Just as he fell to the ground, a second man stepped out of the bunker, flanking Crowley from behind while the woman, who Hazel could only guess was Abbadon, approached him directly. “You’re a slippery little weasel, Crowley,” she told him. Her voice would have been melodic and pleasant if she didn’t sound so vicious.
“I have my talents.”
“Like getting captured by the Winchesters and locked up with your little toy here?”
Abbadon’s back was to her now, but Hazel no longer had the knife. It was sticking out of the side of the man--demon--she’d just killed. Hazel felt stupid and useless. She could have helped him and herself if she’d had the presence of mind to hold onto the knife or grab it before these two had exited the bunker.
“Do you actually think you can control them all?” Crowley asked. “Demons aren’t loyal. They need to be managed like children. And you can’d do it; you’re a tantrum-pulling child yourself, darling.”
The other demon was circling around behind her. Hazel could feel his presence. She glanced back to see him pulling the knife out of his fallen comrade. When she turned around, Crowley was gone and Abbadon was spinning around, trying to find her.
Hazel’s stomach dropped. He had left. He’d left her there to be slaughtered by this evil woman--demon, she corrected herself again. Panic was welling up in her as she glanced around and saw nothing but a rainy Kansas day and two demons intent on tearing her apart. And just as strong as the fear was the betrayal. She’d actually believed he would help keep her safe, but when the going got tough, he’d skipped out to save himself. And left her alone.
“What do you say we dissect this little toy and find where the key is?” Abbadon asked her soldier. He was obviously a military demon in a military human body, camo and all.
“I don’t have it,” Hazel offered up the lame excuse, but it fell flat.
“I can smell it on you,” Abbadon replied.
“You... you can have it. Just don’t kill me.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, we’re going to have a little torture before the killing. Anything to stick it to that little weasel Crowley. He and his pack of rats have been causing me too much trouble.” She walked toward Hazel. “He doesn’t deserve to rule as Lucifer did.”
Hazel took a step back and then a step to the side, putting them both in front of her. There was no escape. If she ran, they would catch her. If she stayed, they would kill her. The bunker offered no safety because it no longer had a door. There was no car she could use to get away from them, and even if there was, she didn’t have any keys.
“Please. Just take the key. Just take it. I don’t want it.” She took another step back and almost tripped on a rock.
“Let’s start by cutting her fingers and toes off so I can hear her scream,” Abbadon told her lackey.
Hazel took another step back and felt her back hit something. She cringed, realizing it was another of Abbadon’s demons. And then she heard his voice said, “Hello, love.” And then she heard him curse.
Abbadon laughed manically. “You think I’d let you pull that little disappearing act with this little prize here?” she told Crowley. “I’ve anchored her to this place. You can’t run off with her unless you actually want to do some running.”
Hazel swallowed the lump in her throat. She was still terrified, but with him standing behind her she felt less frantic, less hopeless. Even if he couldn’t evaporate her out of this place.
“I’ll make you watch as we filet her and dig out that key,” Abbadon told Crowley.
“I’m afraid not, darling,” he said, turning Hazel around and grabbing the back of her neck. She didn’t have a chance to prepare herself for a hard, forceful kiss. His tongue swept through her mouth and his lips pressed tightly against hers. She felt that tingle and warmth at the base of her skull, just like the night he’d walked to her to car.
When he pulled back, he pushed Hazel hard toward the bunker. “Go!” he yelled at her.
“But...” she protested, watching him turn back to Abbadon and display a jagged black mark on the palm of his hand.
“Go!” he screamed again. “Run.”
Hazel stumbled back a step, but couldn’t make herself leave him.
“I left you, you stupid girl! Leave me. Go!”
“Kill him and give me the key,” Abbadon said.
Hazel looked behind her at the mound of earth that covered the top of the bunker and then back to Crowley. She was useless to him, a liability. She glanced behind her again, but her heart couldn’t leave him alone with this evil woman. When she glanced back to him, the demon in the camo had shoved the knife deep into Crowley’s gut. She could hear his scream, just like the scream of the demon she had killed herself with that same knife.
Hazel let out an anguished cry, a pathetic, helpless sob before turning away and scrambling up the hill on her feet, knees, hands, however she could get away. She was half expecting one or both of the demons to catch up with her. Every step she took she was expecting to feel the steely grip of hands around her neck, pulling her back.
She felt like she’d been running for hours and miles when she reached a one-lane road. Just on the horizon she saw two figures. No doubt Abbadon and her lackey, coming after her now that Crowley was dead. Hazel felt a sob well up from her throat as she turned and started running in the opposite direction. She wasn’t sure how far she would make it with torn-up bare feet.
“Hazel!” a voice yelled from behind her. “Hazel, stop!”
She turned around to see the figures had gained on her. “It’s Dean and Sam!” the other person yelled.
She felt relief wash over her as she collapsed on the pavement and started crying.